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God by doing good to the world, will receive a crown of rejoicing which the
wisdom of earth has not to bestow, when the opening world of light shall
break upon his spirit from the sphere where angels dwell. Then what spirits
have done to make him wiser, will be wisdom to make him happier. Then
what he has sacrificed in works of good to his race, will be more than what
works of indifference to the voice of angels, can impart. Then what he now
sees only in part will be more fully revealed, and he will not need what others
will need, when they reach the city beyond the valley of darkness and doubt.
Then what we have written and taught in these pages will be understood, and
obeyed. Then wisdom will write with him and inspire him with the
blessedness of God. Then the writing of spirits will be no new theme; for he
will see who controls, and the wisdom that controls all conditions of mind, so
as to instruct and write what will do good. Then Jesus will write for him, and
what he writes will not be disregarded but obeyed, and his spirit will progress
in the knowledge of the truth forever and ever.
SPIRIT WORLD. 261
A NARRATIVE.
(WRITTEN BY THE SPIRIT OF A YOUNG LADY TO HER BROTHER.)
MY apology for this disclosure is, that I wish you to know the truth. You
never saw me in the body. I am a stranger to you. I am a stranger to many who
may have an interest to know the misery I suffered during a brief sojourn on
earth. I have a dear friend, a brother, who knows my life; yet, my dear brother
is a brother still. He mourned my melancholy fate. He saw me degraded, but
he never forsook me. He saw me ruined in the sight of the world, but he still
loved me as a brother. Oh, my brother! What can I do to requite your favors to
me in the day of adversity, in a day which tried your soul, in a day bitter with
shame to your heart not that you had done wrong Heaven forbid! But I, a
weak and imprudent sister, had submitted to the ignominy, the treachery of a
base heart, and been lured by the fascinations of a serpent, who beguile me in
my innocence. The monster still lives still survives the wreck his passions
have made. He will live when my shame shall be remembered no more. He
will live, and, living, feel the quiver which bore my body to the land of
graves. He will live, oh my brother! be not angry that he lives! The world
wide charity of your benevolence will suffer no wrong by a clemency,
diffusive as the morning light. I linger near you to console a heart, bleeding
for the misery which led me away from scenes that mocked the wail of a
repentant sister scenes which disturbed the solitude of weary hours scenes
which forbade me friends scenes which made every nerve of my body to
convulse with fear scenes which wrought decay to my weak frame and
scenes painful beyond the endurance of contemplation.
I turn, and wherever I turn, I see my brother, dismayed with the foul mind that
murdered my hopes of life. I see him no where consoled with the smile of
gladness, with which he was wont to greet me in, my chamber of despair. I
see wrong a dark cloud still lingers above and around his head, to curse the
day made dark by the man, who ruined the hope of a confiding brother. Oh!
and may I call him brother? May I call him what my deed, my wrong, would
never justify? Yes: He is my brother. He was my brother. He will not disown
me. Alas! he did not disown me, when all other friends forsook me. He will
speak of me, and call me sister. He did call, me, sister, when others blushed to
own me such. And can I forget my brother? Can I forsake when he never
forsook? Can I disown when he was always true? Never, no, never.
262 LIGHT FROM THE
I see what he sees not. I know what he does not know. All other hearts are not
as his. All other minds are not as his. His dear spirit I love love because it
loved me love because no other love visited me with a smile a tear a tear
in smiles. No other love came to my sick chamber with such cheerfulness,
such readiness, such anxiety, such sympathy, and such pity, as that which
melted my soul with gratitude that I had a brother in the day of misfortune.
Did I not have friends? Did I not love and confide in my friends? I will say, I
had many many who were near to my heart. I was gay, cheerful, and happy.
I was welcomed to the circles of the wealthy though dependent dependent,
as my brother knows, on his arm for protection. I mingled in the society of the
fashionable, for my brother was the pride of literary merit; yes, the merit of an
offering which minds welcome to drawing-rooms of a populous city a city
desecrated by the relation I am about to give.
Oh, that my brother could see the work! Oh, that I could give even a faint
sketch of my wretchedness, when we met after my mission of wrong more
wrong in another had been consummated! The task overcomes the capacity
of recital. I saw him him whom my brother loved, and because my brother
loved I loved also. The mind of one was the mind of the other, I was
deceived he was deceived both were betrayed. In the betrayer I reposed
confidence, as I would in a brother. Oh! how misplaced! But I was weak not
wicked for I never had been taught that it was wrong to confide in a
professed servant of Jesus a minister of the Gospel. No: I had no wisdom to
protect me against wrong from such a quarter; no suspicion to indulge that he
would injure me, and no counselor to forewarn me of impending ruin. In that
mistaken confidence I loved a man a deceiver who has made wretched more
souls than mine. He professed love love which thrilled my heart with the
impulse of affection love that seemed to pervade my whole nature, and offer
visions of delight to my ardent hopes love which sought only what would
contribute to the luxury of anticipation and distrust no promise or pleasure
which his liberality had to bestow. He was my counselor when the dark hour
of temptation came. He was my trust when we anticipated all that human
minds could expect. He was my wisdom to do what no mind asks me to relate.
Oh, my God! Oh, my soul! Oh, my brother! Who was deceived? Who was
wronged? Who was betrayed? Never, no, never, need such work be vindicated
while mind is mind, and God is judge. Never, let my soul taste again the curse
which pollution brings to damn me with its wrath and misery. Never, so long
as law is true to mind, and mind is controlled by law. No: nor will the law
unbind the wrong which deceived and wounded my trusting spirit. It is that
SPIRIT WORLD. 263
which makes me write a confession of my shame. It is that law, and violation
of law, that wounds, but not to heal, which demands words of penitence from
a spirit out of the body as wall as in it. Oh! what words will reveal my
sorrow? What words will atone for the infatuation or a deluded and ignorant
child, drawn away from the path of duty to God and duty to friends, as well as
respect for myself? Words will not atone. A bleeding mind, a wronged
innocence, a conscience defiled, a soul degraded, a character injured, are these
the dregs of bitterness that filled my cup of misery, and which must live to
haunt my spirit when my body has returned to dust? Oh, dearest brother! thou
hast not known, because thou hast not seen nor felt the sweetness of a mercy
which whispers forgiveness like that which make the soul of injured virtue in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]